Revising roller skates. I took the basics from part of an older design and reworked it a little and completely pinked up the colors. The roller rink in my town is very old and has a wood floor. Supposedly it floats! Like the building was made to float. Why? Because it's next to a river that has flooded in the past. Now that I'm writing this, it sounds very silly. I may need to check my facts. Wait! New plan! Start making actual money from this and then hire a fact checker to do that for me. Stay tuned. Like for a while.

Anyway, in that roller rink, there are little practice areas off of the main floor. One of them is wavy, so you can skate over little rolling hills. That's what came to mind when I created the flow of the roller skates for this design. Skate Star placed 257/417 in a Spoonflower Design Challenge. I think I formatted it a little too big, so voters couldn't see the whole thing. That, and maybe pink and white roller skates are over done. Who knows. I thought the whole thing was so cute that I made a whole mini-collection around it. 

Little watercolor hearts. Is there anything sweeter? Probably not. I have plans for doing a whole collection. Maybe with some xo's tossed in. Who knows what else. But all watercolor-ey softness and texture. 

For fun, I did a doodle-a-day challenge to kick off 2020. For one of the designs (I don't even remember what the prompt was - water? drink? who knows) I did a little glass with a stripe straw on a bright blue background. A commenter mentioned that it would make a great tea towel. So, I picked up the citrus elements from an older design added them in and created a template. I really just love the summery colors. And would have to agree: It is an adorable tea towel.

Designed for a Kitsch-themed Spoonflower Design Challenge, I went with the iconic look of vintage casserole dishes. I wanted fun color pops...and always love a bright yellow. I pictured this fabric as curtains in a 50s themed kitchen. OK. That might be overkill, but surely this would make for adorable cloth napkins, tea towels...for sure an apron. I ranked 265/513. So basically right down the middle. Not too shabby, I guess.

Another entry for a Spoonflower Design Challenge - this one way outside my wheelhouse. Black and White Painterly. My medium at this point is all digital, and I was still getting to know brushes. Actually it was a good exercise in that regard. I wanted it to show more layers and texture than I was able to capture. This just isn't a design I would ever use, so we'll call it practice and put it to bed. I placed 364 out of 584.

The design challenge theme was Pop Art Citrus. My inspiration was disco/roller skates and using a surprising color palette that sort of slanted toward the 70s. I like the idea of the skate wheels being slices of fruit, and the yellow, green, and orange went right with the citrus. I added purple to just go all in. Personally, I thought the colors were fun and refreshing. For some reason I stay away from orange and purple when I'm drawing. And though green is my favorite color, I don't end up using it much. So this design purposefully filled in some gaps. 

I couldn't decide whether to add the halved bits of fruit or no. The design I entered the fruitier design. But it didn't fare too well among voters - I placed 417/582. Just guessing that the colors were a little too weird and the skate/citrus mashup not quite marketable enough to be a favorite. All in all, I think they're fun prints. Shrug.

A fun goof on one of my favorite collections - Frosted Dino Circus. This one made just for the Christmas holidays. A bright green traded out for pink and blue. I stuck with yellows and greens for the sprinkles so as not to detract from the little red Rudolph noses. I thought this design would get a little more traction than it has...but it's really about exposure, which is something I need to work on. Perhaps a small collection of clothing for the holidays next year would help. We'll see!

I sorta thought I nailed Chintz for this Spoonflower Design Challenge. Alas, the people have spoken and they said 302nd place (out of 500). This was, however, excellent practice for working in layers in Procreate. I did layer-by-layer "painting" dark to light for each rose and leaf. I thought it worked quite nicely. It has a paint by numbers vibe, yet feels very grandma. Which is totally what i was going for.

I worked on this design during Thanksgiving break in Massachusetts. The challenge was to use jewel tone colors. I went for a very literal interpretation, creating actual jewels. I thought colorful rings would be fun. Lots of pink and lots of sparkle! I really should make a little girls dress out of this.

In the Spoonflower Design Challenge I entered, I placed 376/617. Obviously I still haven't worked out the most marketable designs. At the end of the day, all these designs are really about learning and expanding on the process. It's just a bonus that if a design turns out cute, I can turn it into something.

Update: Another Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone. Little did I know that that trip to MA would be the last time we could travel for a while. 

Check out the Keats Yeats Etsy shop to see what is available.

Fabric is for sale at Spoonflower.